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'A masterpiece of hurt' The New York TimesSet in the Eastern Caribbean at the beginning of the twentieth century, No Pain Like this Body describes the perilous existence of a poor rice-growing family during the August rainy season.
About the author
Harold Sonny Ladoo was born in Trinidad in 1945 and emigrated to Toronto in 1968 with his wife and two children. In 1972 he graduated from the University of Toronto and his first novel, No Pain Like This Body, was published, earning Ladoo immediate recognition as a new literary talent. The following year he returned to Trinidad to settle a land dispute but was murdered. He was just twenty-eight. His second novel, Yesterdays, was published posthumously in 1974.Monique Roffey was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and lives in London. She is the author of seven novels and a memoir. The Mermaid of Black Conch won the Costa Book of the Year and the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize. Her other highly acclaimed books include Archipelago, which won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle and House of Ashes. In addition to her work as an environmental activist, she is a professor of contemporary fiction at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Summary
'A masterpiece of hurt' New York Times
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MONIQUE ROFFEY
In the Caribbean, at the beginning of the last century, a poor rice-growing family struggle to exist. Four siblings pass their days in the ricefield, as does Ma. But Pa is an angry man ready to vent. It is the August rainy season and above their heads the black sky crackles with lightning.
On the day that Pa nearly drowns Ma in a tub of washing water, the children and their mother escape into the cane fields to wait out Pa's rage. But eight-year-old Rama, catches a chill in the rain and falls ill. What follows is a tale of the inheritance of loss. It contains a heart-stopping intensity that places it as one of the greatest Caribbean novels ever written.
'It is a novel unconcerned with anything but truth-telling' Dionne Brand
'To anyone who knows Caribbean literature his novel is infamous, and Ladoo is seen as one of the region's great literary stars' Independent
'Ladoo drags you through this terrific hurricane, and you can never forget it' Amanda Smyth, author of Fortune
